Waltzing MatildaAustralia's Accidental Anthem

In August 1895, the young Sydney lawyer-poet Andrew Barton 'Banjo' Paterson was making a brief visit to outback Queensland. He had been brought to Dagworth Station, near Winton, by his fiancée Sarah Riley — a friend of Christina Macpherson. There Christina, an amateur musician, played him a melody, and to her tune Paterson wrote the words of Waltzing Matilda: an accidental collaboration between two people who had met by chance and soon went their separate ways.

The song's defiant swagman has long been tied to the turbulent backdrop of the 1894 Shearers' Strike — the burning of the Dagworth woolshed and the death of striker Samuel 'Frenchy' Hoffmeister at the Combo Waterhole — yet who the swagman really was remains an unanswered question, and much of what surrounds the song has hardened into folklore.

"This song that started as an accidental collaboration in outback Queensland in 1895 caused the death of a seven-year relationship and went on to inspire a nation during World War II, following Banjo Paterson's death in 1941."

The chance meeting came at a cost: it is said to have ended Paterson's seven-year engagement to Sarah Riley. Written by a criminal barrister, Waltzing Matilda — Australia's Accidental Anthem is a forensic history of the events, the people and the places that led to the writing of Australia's internationally famous song. Its evidence-based approach dispels many of the myths and historical inaccuracies that have become folklore — revealing the facts about the swagman, the contributions of Christina Macpherson and Sarah Riley, and the timing and the place of the composition.

Lindner's forensic approach concludes that Banjo's original lyrics were composed as a love serenade…then, within 100 years, a later version was proposed as Australia's unofficial national anthem attracting well over 800 versions.